O editor mine,

Some good news—work continues apace on “Broken Promise”! Wait, what’s that, you say? Correct! I’ve changed the title from the plural to the singular; my wife, Kimm, thinks it’s much sharper this way. As you know, Kimm (two m’s) is a published poet, and she pointed out that by taking off that -s you turn it into a two-syllable word. It’s given me a big boost!

The intro reads much better now; by intro I mean Chapter 1, formerly the prologue. And I have an amazing idea for the ending that I hope to share with you soon. You’ve been amazingly patient, coming on seven years now, after Rhonda’s passing; I know she had every confidence you were the absolute right person to help see this project through. Your kind note last March (“Keep going”) really buoyed my spirits. Entre nous, I’d been having a tough time emotionally (Kimm “kept going” on these poetry retreats, for months at a stretch) but I’ve bounced back 100%. I haven’t felt this confident since that first draft, which I dashed off when Bush the First was elected president.

I had a couple of quick points. No need to answer them all—it just helps for me to get them out on paper. Or—as they say now—“e-mail”!

Without further ado:

1. I’m swapping out the Proust epigraph for a poem by Rumi. I was thinking of commissioning a new translation of Mystic Ode 473. Can the fee be taken out of my advance?

2. Zap! That’s the sound of jumper cables being clamped to the dialogue in Chapter 8 (“The Clouds and the Birds”). Now, instead of whispering, everyone’s shouting at each other. They’re not angry or anything. I just thought the exclamation points amped up the tension. Good/bad?

3. Is it too late to change the main character’s name? “Ronald” feels less fashionable than it did fifteen years ago, when I started with Rhonda.

4. You’ll notice that Ronald bears a slight physical resemblance to Rhonda. Do you think people will notice? I’m not concerned about Joe Sixpack, but what about the quote unquote literati? Maybe having Ronald wear that lime-green headband is too obvious. Not to mention his lisp and his fondness for French manicures. Am I risking a lawsuit? (By the way, is Rhonda’s husband still around? Dick wasn’t my biggest fan. If you could check about the restraining order, I’d appreciate it.)

5. I want to push back on your edits to Chapter 26. I think it’s very important that the Japanese and Russian words not only remain untranslated, but that they’re rendered authentically in kanji and Cyrillic. (You wrote in the margin, “The reader won’t understand”—that’s partly my point!)

6. This just came to me: Instead of Ronald, how about “Dwayne”?

7.  The chronology is deliberately scrambled in the novel. I don’t know if Rhonda explained, before she departed this vale of tears, that the narrator (Dwayne) is an embryo, watching a movie of his future life.

8. Or “Wayne”?

9. You asked why I was no longer employing “track changes.” This is due to the simple fact that I no longer have a computer. And before you say anything else: the ones in the library keep crashing. So it’s back to the old Smith-Corona for me! (It took me a few months to locate ribbons that would fit.) In the future please send the entire book back with your notes on separate sheets of paper as well as on Post-Its throughout the manuscript. To expedite things, why not set up a color-coded system? I’m a quick study!

10. I ignored all your notes in Chapter 3 about repetition; I’m deliberately reusing certain phrases and even entire paragraphs. The perceptive reader will note that Bess, Ronald’s girlfriend—I mean (D?)Wayne’s!—is suffering temporary memory loss as the result of either her heavy breakfast at the Hotel Lutetia, or the electroshock treatment from the night before.

11. I know this is premature, but what the hell: When it comes time to tour me, I’m totally venue-agnostic. Bookstores, auditoriums, etc. are all fine by me—however you want to promote “Broken Promise,” I’m easy! However, I need to talk to your legal team about putting in a “rider” that bans cell-phones or other recording devices. The audience should be prepared to surrender all such devices at the start of the reading. I’m simply not ready to be “shared” on “social media,” thereby watering down my brand. Surely you understand this. (Dwayne wouldn’t want it any other way!)

12. Chapter 23 should say “New Paltz, 2011,” not “Paris, 1907.” My bad. Autocorrect strikes again!

13. Please don’t remove, add, or replace any words without telling me. What you see as errors—mixing past and present tense, for example—my ideal reader will see as intentional inconsistencies. Trust me on this one!

14. It goes without saying: We’re long overdue for a face-to-face! It’ll be great to finally meet you. I should be in New York next summer, barring a recurrence of the ol’ lumbago. I’ll shoot you some dates as we get closer.

Cheers,
Ed

P.S. What do you think of “UN-broken Promise” as the title? I won’t say a word to Kimm if you don’t.